Fifty years ago, Dave and Jacky Hood met at the University of Nebraska as engineering students with a mutual interest in Objectivism. Today, they’re still two independent-thinking engineers, happy, productive, and doing what they can to encourage voluntary relationships in every aspect of life.

The 50 years have been full of adventures.

Dave graduated first and was hired by Bell Labs, which sponsored his master’s degree at Stanford. The pay was $400 per month, $450 for married students. (As Dave puts it, what better reason could there be to get married?) The couple spent 10 years in Canada, with both Dave and Jacky working at Bell-Northern Research (later Nortel) in Ottawa.

But Ottawa winters eventually reminded the Hoods how great the weather was in the San Francisco Bay area, not to mention the high-tech environment. The pair moved to Palo Alto, where they enjoyed the unparalleled opportunities for outdoor activities. Remembering a daydream from university days, Dave and Jacky decided to bicycle 4,200 miles across North America. They spent a year living in Munich and traveled widely,from enjoying beer in the Bavarian Alps, Switzerland, Vienna, and Salzburg to exploring Kuala Lumpurand Bucharest.

As dedicated libertarians back in California, they soon connected with Cato around our Bay Area events, like a 1994 seminar with Milton Friedman and our 2003 Liberty, Technology, and Prosperity Seminar co-sponsored with The Economist.

Dave and Jacky are part of Cato’s community because they strongly believe in the power and morality of voluntary associations. Because Dave and Jacky are longtime Cato Sponsors, the Institute has benefited from their financial as well as personal contributions for many years. Our work is stronger thanks to their loyal, sophisticated engagement in Cato’s efforts.

“Appeals to emotion are satisfying but unproductive,” say Dave and Jacky, citing rallies, slogans, political parties, and the like. “In the long term, what matters are ideas. If force and fraud are off the table, ideas are the only weapons we have. We can only improve things by convincing those who do not share our outlook.”

“We view Cato as the organization best focused on serious advocacy that goes beyond preaching to the choir,” they added, citing Cato’s success in amicus briefs to the Supreme Court, the use of Cato studies as reference material by government staffers, and Cato testimony to congressional committees, among other things.

A few years ago, Dave and Jacky decided that, in addition to their annual contributions to Cato, leaving an outright gift in their estate was an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to our shared values. Creating their legacy gift to Cato was as simple as making the designation in their estate plans and informing the Institute.